Strawberry blond hair curtaining a beautiful face. Pale soft skin, a porcelain doll laying on a hard surface scattered with shards of glass. Green shining eyes are revealed, moving around as if they mastered the art of forgetting. Rosy cheeks and red lips complete the doll. She got up, bare feet moving against the floor, and a shiver struck her core at the… …the…. Her tongue skimmed her lips as her mind seemed to have difficulty grasping the word to describe the floor. Coldness, which was the word she couldn’t seem to grasp. Across the room a paper was stuck to a fragile glass door. Her green eyes followed the words on the paper, but they seemed to be foreign. They seemed to be falling off the paper, disappearing. “Crystal” was whispered in her ear, and in one swift motion her body turned to…..nothing and nobody. The whispers continued, and she fell to the ground, covering her ears before a scream was ripped from her throat and a word flashed behind her closed lids. Banshee. Crystal headed to the door as if aware of what she had to do and laid a calloused hand upon it — the only part of her which was not soft, porcelain. Her red lips parted, but before she could speak or scream, Crystal was blown back and into her previous position.

Strawberry blond hair curtaining a beautiful face. Pale soft skin, a porcelain doll laying on a hard surface scattered with shards of glass. Green shining eyes are revealed, moving around as if they mastered the art of forgetting. Rosy cheeks and red lips complete the doll. She tilted her head and a mirror came into view. An ancient mirror engraved with foreign looking words, her lids closed and a gasp escaped her as immense pain took hold of her, restraining her, keeping her from moving. Green eyes fell on her arm, which was bleeding. The wound shaped letters, a word: “Crystal.” The mirror. Crystal focused on the mirror, not the pain and not the blood, just the mirror. She got up and looked into the mirror, wanting to see her frazzled attire, but all that met the eyes was a boy. Black messy hair, blue eyes alight, and mouth curved into a smile as he looked at her with his soft, childish smile. “Banshee,” he said softly, and he had the voice of an angel, a pure child. Crystal touched the mirror when he let his hand rest on the other side of the mirror to touch her hand. A scream that could shatter glass emitted from her, and whispers filled the room. Her vision returned to the boy, and she dropped to the ground as tears blurred her vision. He was dead; skin pale, eyes dull and laying in a pool of scarlet blood. His childish smile was still on his face. Crystal closed her eyes but didn’t open them.

Strawberry blond hair curtaining a beautiful face. Pale soft skin, a porcelain doll laying on a hard surface scattered with shards of glass. Green shining eyes are revealed, moving around as if they mastered the art of forgetting. Rosy cheeks and red lips complete the doll. A girl with golden curls curtaining her back and a beautiful young face was running around green fields at sunset wearing a purple dress which brought out her stunning hazel eyes. “Crystal,” her soft voice kept repeating. Crystal headed toward the little girl, but just as she took the first step, she could see the fields. Sky gray — no longer a wonderful shade of orange, grass ripped out, drenched in blood, and bodies lay all around. Her need to scream was overwhelming, but she felt a hand slide into hers, and her eyes met those of the girl’s who was on the ground in the middle of this tragedy. “Don’t scream. Please,” she whispered. Crystal nodded, tears streaking down her face and onto the girl’s forehead. The little girl looked toward the gray sky and whispered through her soft sobs. “I don’t want you to scream,” she muttered, and Crystal nodded again, parting her lips to reassure her, but the only thing that she heard herself doing was screaming. The little girl’s hand went limp in her own, and her hazel eyes lost their beautiful light. Crystal cried harder and reached out to caress the girl’s cheek before she felt herself fall backward and onto the ground.

Strawberry blond hair curtaining a beautiful face. Pale soft skin, a porcelain doll laying on a hard surface scattered with shards of glass. Green shining eyes are revealed, moving around as if they mastered the art of forgetting. Rosy cheeks and red lips complete the doll. “1, 2, 3….. I will come and find you, Crystal.” A voice chanted, an old woman dressed in her silk nightgown and moving around the garden searching for a child. “There you are, Crystal,” the old women said, a smile breaking over her wrinkled face while she carried the child back inside the house and seated her on her lap. “Crystal, dear, I want you to know that it is okay to scream.” The child smiled and played with the white hair on the old woman’s head and looked at their very similar eyes. The old woman closed her eyes as she repeated, “It is okay to scream, my dear.” The child looked confused and just buried her head in her grandmother’s chest, drifting off to sleep. However, the old woman couldn’t sleep, that was until midnight when Crystal’s green eyes flew open as tears poured down her cheeks, a piercing scream left her lips that shouldn’t be heard from a child. The old woman’s eyes closed; she could finally have some sleep. The child looked at the woman to find her body lifeless. She wanted to cry, but she just hugged the old woman’s lifeless body.

Strawberry blond hair curtaining a beautiful face. Pale soft skin, a porcelain doll laying on a hard surface scattered with shards of glass. Green shining eyes are revealed, moving around as if they mastered the art of forgetting. The sound of the water gushing in her ear. Near her was a chasm, hallow and dark, surrounded with fog. Crystal had about enough. Seeing people die time after time after time had gotten her to the edge. In frustration she screamed, “What should I do to stop being the thing I am?!” Whispers closed in on her and she refused to listen. An old man sat across her, on the opposite side of the chasm. “Hey, child, why not scream for me? Is it my time yet?” Crystal looked at him for a while: bald head, shining brown eyes, calloused hands, and the figure of a man who once fought wars. A soldier. She couldn’t lie to him; she felt it. “Yes, it is, sir.” The old man smiled and moved his hand as if to touch hers. Suddenly she felt the water touching her. She closed her eyes, trying to drown out the whispers surrounding her by distracting herself with songs — ones she remembered by an unknown soft voice; even so, the whispers never failed to make her scream. Crystal’s scream echoed all around until she opened her eyes to see the old man fall down the chasm. Crystal curled in on herself at the sight, all the deaths and tragedies she saw flashing before her, like a tape on repeat. She closed her eyes, not able to bear the pain any longer.

Strawberry blond hair curtaining a beautiful face. Pale soft skin, a porcelain doll laying on a hard surface scattered with shards of glass. Green shining eyes are revealed, moving around as if they mastered the art of forgetting. Rosy cheeks and red lips complete the doll. She had hoped and wished that she would not be near the chasm anymore — she wouldn’t be near people anymore, to not hurt anyone anymore. The chasm was still there, only wider. A sentence was carved upon the chasm wall: The only way out is down. Crystal read the sentence over and over; she understood that the only way out of this tired world is down, toward death. “Why me?” she whispered, but the words only glowed as if calling her to them. “Why me?” she said again in a louder voice. The words only glowed brighter. “Why me?” she demanded, the words glowed even brighter. “Why me?” she screamed. But the words never changed; they only glowed brighter, as if telling her to stop asking and to listen, but listen to what? She strained her ear, trying to hear something, anything, but nothing came, just the rush of the water even though the words still glowed as if urging her to do something. Crystal had had enough of following orders and doing things for others. It was time she did something for herself.

Strawberry blond hair curtaining a beautiful face. Pale soft skin, a porcelain doll laying on a hard surface scattered with shards of glass. Green shining eyes are revealed, moving around as if they mastered the art of forgetting. Rosy cheeks and red lips complete the doll. She was sitting in a chair in front of a mirror as a woman brushed her hair while singing softly. The woman looked similar to her; same green eyes and fragile frame, same calloused hands. “You look so wonderful, my Crystal,” she whispered. Crystal did look beautiful; strawberry blond hair in an elegant bun, dark eye makeup surrounding her striking green eyes, rosy cheeks, red lips, and her porcelain figure wrapped in a white dress that gave her an aura of arrogant elegance. The dress left her collarbones and shoulders bare, it was tight until the hips but flows downward and trailed behind her as it had a faint spark. “Shouldn’t everyone look beautiful on their special day?” the woman asked, and Crystal felt herself nod in agreement as the woman held her hand and led her towards a chasm. The woman smiled kindly at her and whispered, “Read, dear.” Crystal looked at the words that still glowed on the side of the chasm and looked at the woman in confusion. “I had always told your father you were brave. Let go, sweetheart. Let go.” She took a deep breath and hugged the woman as soon as she realized that this was her mother. Crystal cried into her mother’s shoulder as her mother stroked her hair soothingly and mumbled, “I know, dear.” She cried harder, falling to her knees in the arms of her mother as she whispered, “I can’t take this, Mom, help me.” Her mother nodded and helped her up and pointed towards the chasm, the words. “Listen one last time, dear. One last time, Crystal. I love you.” With that, she disappeared, but her kind smile didn’t fade from Crystal’s memory. She looked down, took a deep breath, and followed the old man. She jumped down the chasm.

Dirty, strawberry blond hair curtaining a beautiful face. Scarred, pale soft skin, a porcelain doll laying on a hard surface scattered with shards of glass. Green dull eyes are revealed, still and motionless as if they mastered the art of forgetting. Rosy cheeks of fading color and red paling lips complete the broken doll. Water rushed around her but could never cover that wonderful doll. A smile so bright used to always be on her face, a voice so soft used to always be like music to others and a person who was once alive. Now gone, but she used to be here. No matter how damaged her porcelain body seemed to be, lopsided, bent at odd angels and coated with scarlet blood. It had those eyes — now to passersby dull and lost. To those who knew the doll at its best, however, it was evident that those eyes which seemed to always glow, seemed so stubborn and too wild to be stopped — eyes that always seemed to refuse to die — are not dull, but calm and composed, after all this time. They had truly mastered the art of forgetting.